Famous Diarists

Some of the most important people that ever lived kept a diary.

Here is a short list of notable people who kept a diary or journal.

A Diary Can Tell Your Story When You're Gone

Your diary is your story. Your private point of view that gives others access to your thoughts in a way nothing else can. Below is an extended list of notable diarists who poured their thoughts out on a paper.

Peter Beard

Born in 1938 in New York City, raised in New York City, Alabama, and Bayberry Point, Islip, Long Island, Peter Beard kept diaries at an early age. He took his first pictures at twelve and photography quickly evolved into an extension of his diaries, as a way to preserve and remember vacations and favorite things. In 1957 he entered Yale University as a pre-medical student, but perceiving humans as the main disease soon switched to art history, studying under Vincent Scully, Joseph Albers, and Richard Lindner.

source: http://www.peterbeard.com/bio.htm

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and a photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the genre of literary nonsense.

Dodgson kept an extensive diary for many years of his life, totaling 13 volumes.

Andrew Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), more commonly known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author, and public figure known for his membership in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy aristocrats.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer and essayist, known for his novels Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoyevsky's literary output explores human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society. Considered by many as a founder or precursor of 20th-century existentialism, his Notes from Underground (1864), written in the embittered voice of the anonymous "underground man", was called by Walter Kaufmann the "best overture for existentialism ever written." A prominent figure in world literature, Dostoyevsky is often acknowledged by critics as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) is one of the most important and influential fiction writers of the early 20th century; a novelist and writer of short stories whose works, only after his death, came to be regarded as one of the major achievements of 20th century literature.

Kafka's writing attracted little attention until after his death. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories and never finished any of his novels, unless The Metamorphosis is considered a (short) novel. Prior to his death, Kafka wrote to his friend and literary executor Max Brod: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread."

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka

Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and psychologist. Kierkegaard strongly criticised both the Hegelianism of his time and what he saw as the empty formalities of the Danish National Church. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives, focusing on the priority of concrete human reality over abstract thinking and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Søren_Kierkegaard

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his writings deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care and class privilege.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953). Truman, whose demeanor was very different from that of the patrician Roosevelt, was a folksy, unassuming president. He popularized such phrases as "The buck stops here" and "If you can't stand the heat, you better get out of the kitchen."[2] He overcame the low expectations of many political observers who compared him unfavorably with his highly-regarded predecessor. At different points in his presidency, Truman earned both the lowest public approval ratings that had ever been recorded, and the highest approval ratings to be recorded until 1991.

Harry Truman wrote about the atomic bomb in his diary:

"We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark."

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman

Viginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf (25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English novelist, essayist, diarist, epistler, publisher, feminist, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century.Her diaries from 1915 to 1941 were published as "The Diary of Virginia Woolf."

source: http://www.peterbeard.com/bio.htm

Types of Journals

Daily Diary Keeping a daily diary with Penzu couldn't be easier. Write at any time from anywhere.

Expressive Journal Since Penzu is totally private, you can write whatever you want and truly express your feelings!